Sam Harris: “The End of Faith” — truly remarkable and thought-provoking … starting in a minute or two
From Powell’s on The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason:
Review:
“The End of Faith articulates the dangers and absurdities of organized religion so fiercely and so fearlessly that I felt relieved as I read it, vindicated, almost personally understood.” New York Times
Review:
“[It] is rare in this postmodern age to read a book by someone so vigorously defending rational thought, especially from a unique neuroscientific perspective.” Library Journal
Review:
“Provocative is too pale a word.” Kirkus Reviews
The publisher’s comments offer much more.
Oh, good heavens, this man is great! I want him on my tv all day long with his views!!!! How come we have missed out on him? He is so good in his rhetoric and information given. Thanks for sending up the alert!
Thanks susan, this is fascinating.
I caught the last half of this a few weeks ago, and was riveted. I’m so glad I got to see it all.
C-Span Store sells the video. (If I could, I’d buy the video and get one of those stand-alone TV/DVD players and sit outside churches on Sundays, and play it :):))
His Web site is SamHarris.org.
And this site has an interview with Sam Harris.
Can’t watch it – Mrs. K.P. is using the TV to do an exercise tape. Is it being rerun later?
If not, I have Harris’ book in the “to read” pile; sounds like it needs to percolate to the top a bit faster…
What i saw.. before my stream got too badly fragmented, was pretty well thought out. Very logical.
But.. i think he started to lose it after he started in on ‘religious moderates’ being dangerous. He could have warned against the pitfalls of moderation for it’s own sake.. or described the weakness of such a philosophy to us… but he’s not taking into account that most people don’t have moderation as a guiding principle, per se. They may wish to respect other faiths but still hold their own to be paramount. They may never argue but think that your wrong in their hearts.
He isn’t making the distinction between moderating behavior and moderating thought itself.
Plus, I’m not sure if he’s arguing against moderation, exactly, or simply this example of it. The Aristotelian “Golden Mean” taught us that virtues were ‘moderate.’ Courage is the mean between reckless boldness and cowardess, for example.
It smacks of a strawman argument at that point. His earlier logic i was standing up and saluting.
I also disagree with a bit of what he said about the Koran… from what I had read from it.. a CAREFUL reading would have left one with an understanding that nonviolence is the essence of it’s faith… (Jihad is more of a activist fram of mind according to this reading). So I guess I haven’t read it or I’m lying, according to his either or fallacy of the excluded middle there.
omg im going to be run out of a rail , aren’t i? :p
^_^
No :):)
phew!!!!!
😀
I agreed with most of what he said but like you I think he was either not explaining his idea of ‘religious moderates’ well or his thinking a bit muddied on that.
I’m very glad that someone else felt the same way. I was nodding at what he said until he got to that point.. for the most part. Although, I’ve read an anthology of Bertrand Russel’s thoughts on freethinking (On Why I’m Not a Christian) and it seemed to me that this man’s arguments were pretty much pale copies of Bertram’s.
Anyone still watching C-SPAN2?
Simon Winchester is talking about the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. As an intro, he contrasted the government response to that earthquake 100 years ago (basically trains, tents, rations, troops were arriving within 24 hours) with Katrina.
It hits home all over again. Given all of the resources we have now that we didn’t have then . . . .
but Susan, go check out what James Wolcott has written under “Holding Pattern.” You two are on the same wave length.
And its sounds as if he lives in my old neighborhood. 😉
i’ve never heard of sam harris before but after reading quite a bit from and about him in the last couple of hours i’m thoroughly impressed. not since bertrand russel and a philosopher more succinctly propositioned that a rational mind and a religious mind are so opposed. kudos for the post!
i don’t know how to edit comments…..”not since bertrand russel HAS a philospher (not AND a philospher)…..”